Colorado Mesa opens voting for classroom building name

QUICKREAD

The name Academic Classroom Building isn’t quite the creative moniker Colorado Mesa University leaders wanted to stick around forever.

The possibility of an Academic Classroom Building 2, the temporary name of the mass communications and language building under construction north of the Academic Classroom Building, was even less inspiring.

Colorado Mesa President Tim Foster said the impetus to have students, staff and community members suggest new names for both buildings came from a discussion he had with a student. Foster said he was impressed with students suggesting a new name for the campus’ newest residence hall, Garfield Hall, which the university planned to call Renaissance Village until students came up with what they saw as a more fitting name via an online survey, and wanted to try another survey to name the classroom buildings.

People were allowed to suggest names through Facebook and a campus-only server in late September and October. Suggested names included some humorous contenders, including the Stegosaurus Center, The Death Star and the “Breaking Bad”-inspired Heisenberg Hall. But most suggestions were serious, according to Foster, with many names drawn from local landmarks and nature.

A committee of eight or nine students and Colorado Mesa executives whittled down more than 600 suggestions based on personal preference and appropriateness to 14 options: Aspen, Centennial, Dominguez, Escalante, High Desert, Independence, Kokopelli, Juniper, Liberty Cap, Rimrock, Roan Plateau, Tabeguache, Uncompahgre and Wingate. Building names may be selected based on how well they pair the two buildings together, but Foster said a pairing is not necessary.

Anyone can visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/name-that-building to vote on their two top choices among the options. Voting will close Nov. 11. Foster said the committee will reconvene immediately after voting ends to decide if there are any clear winners and a name will be chosen by the end of that week. A third option, if one is popular enough, may be used as a new name for the Fine Arts Building.

The names will stick for now but are not permanent handles. Each building could someday get a permanent name related to a person through a more stringent nomination and vetting process. Rait and Tolman halls, for example, are permanent hall names that replaced the monikers Aspen and Juniper halls.